The Hades and Persephone Cycle
by CreepingMuse
Summary: A series of standalone vignettes re-imagining both Abbie and Crane as Hades and Persephone. Includes canon-based and AU scenarios.
1. Pomegranates and Daisies

It wasn't uncommon for people to argue with Death. It was one of the reasons she so rarely reaped souls personally now. After the first century or two it becomes predictable and tedious.

 _I have a family, I have so much yet to do, it's not my time, I can change_.

As if they were so very, very special. But each death carried the same significance: Everything and nothing. After all, no one notices when one of a billion candles is snuffed, but everyone notices when an entire world is destroyed. And that was death, time after time.

But this man dying on a battlefield, chest cracked open like a walnut, he didn't argue. Only later would she find how unusual that was for the contentious fool. But for now, gasping for each strained breath, he wasn't querulous.

He was _curious._

"Are you the angel of mercy, then? Come to take me home?" He laughed; blood speckled his lips. "Bit of a busy day for you, I imagine. I'd quite appreciate it if you'd focus your efforts on the chaps dressed like boiled lobsters."

She ignored his babble and bent her head to deliver the kiss that would send him to the beyond. But he circled a grimy hand around her wrist – not to stop her, not to fight her off. Merely to get her attention.

"Is it difficult for you?"

She cast his hand aside, wiping the mud and the blood clean. She should end this now. He was right; there was much work to be done.

But there in his eyes, shining through the pain, was something she had rarely seen when mortals gazed upon her.

Empathy. Compassion. Understanding.

"Is what difficult?" Her disused voice creaked like a rusted gate.

"Sending all these boys to their rest. I know it's your job, of course – not quibbling with you on that account, you do what needs must. But still, man after man, unending slaughter … it must wear on a person."

"I am no person."

"Of course not. Beg pardon."

"Why do you care?"

He grunted and gasped, face contorting, fingers scrabbling at the ruin of his chest. But without her permission, there would be no release for him. He would answer this question and then he would die. "I have been at war five years, madam angel. I have seen men die of disease, of cold, of cannonballs that cut them in two. Five years changes a man. I cannot imagine how an eternity would change a … you."

At the flickering moment between life and death, this man did not think of himself. He thought of the woman come to slay him. How his death might wound her. How the bodies, stacked over the centuries, might cause her pain.

She considered taking him now. He would be her subject, utterly subservient to her whims. But the dead were tiresome. They lose that vital spark that makes humans so infuriating and so intriguing.

And she has no use for a slave. But a companion…

She passed her hand over his chest and he was whole once more – though with a scar to remember her by. "We will meet again, you and I."

He didn't blink. Did not gaze down at his miraculous return to health. "But you did not answer."

"Farewell, Ichabod Crane."

She watched him as he fought and won that war. Watched him as he forged a new nation. Watched as he spent long nights reading crumbling scrolls and moldering books about her many names and faces – Ereshkigal, Izanami, Kali, Baron Samedi, Hades, more. He searched for her. And she waited.

Once, twice, perhaps a dozen times, she curved the path of a bullet, tamed roaring seas, instructed a servant not to let Crane eat the crab puffs at Monticello. Was it cheating? Absolutely. But the world was a more interesting place with him in it, for now.

But the lady of the dead has many responsibilities – making sure death comes at its appointed time, sending souls to their proper afterlife, stopping insurrection in her kingdom – and she could not watch this stork-man all the time. And so he caught her unawares until she heard Cerberus' mighty growl.

She smiled.

She took her time dressing. Wore her finest robes of spider's silk, her tallest shoes, her crown of obsidian and ruby and bone. She ringed her eyes with black and painted her lips as blood and took up her wicked scepter.

She wished to look every inch the dread queen she was.

"Good dog. Yes, that's a good pup. Just – just step aside. I would rather not hurt a dog, even one with thrice the proper number of teeth," the man cajoled.

She stepped beside her faithful hound and placed a hand upon his back. The beast calmed at once, flopping onto his back for a belly rub. She resisted the urge to oblige, staring at Crane in stony silence.

"It's you," he said wonderingly.

"Why have you come?" Her voice shook the cavern; diamonds fell at her feet.

The man was not afraid. "Because you never answered my question."

Her eyebrows rose. "You came to the very gates of hell because you wished to know my _feelings_ on performing the duties I was made for?"

"Yes, well. Curiosity killed the cat and all that," he said with a hopeful smile, revealing a flash of prominent front teeth.

"And satisfaction brought him back," she murmured. She let her frightening façade slip away – her face scrubbed clean, her hair falling soft and loose about her shoulders, trading her robes for a simple shift. "Come," she said.

They walked in the jeweled gardens of the underworld, hard and glittering. And the goddess and the man talked. She answered his question, in bits and pieces, in half-revealed truths and partially-concealed lies. He asked dozens more. But to her mounting surprise, he was less intrigued with her power and more concerned with _her._ As if she were, indeed, a person.

They spoke of him, too. Of a fight for freedom and a thirst for knowledge. Of being betrayer and betrayed.

For the first time since she could remember, she laughed. And when she did, his face glowed with pleasure.

And she knew this must end.

With a wave of her hand, the rock cleft in two, creating a door. "Go."

"But I've only just arrived."

"You do not belong here." _Laughter_ did not belong here. And it certainly did not belong to her.

"I should have been dead three years ago. Only because of you that I'm not."

"Would you like me to revisit that decision?" she hissed, goddess once more.

He shrank back a step. So he was no fool. But still he did not flee. "I have no death wish, madam. But since our meeting, you are all I see. Everywhere, I think I see a glimpse of you, on the edge of a crowd, off in the distance, when I close my eyes. My fate, insignificant as it is, seems quite caught up in yours."

This was no destiny she would wish for him. Unending darkness and damp and the dreary company of the dead. He knew not what he said. Not what it meant.

She whistled. Cerberus, ever faithful, appeared by her side and chased the man back to his world.

She sat beside the river and let her fingers dabble in forgetting.

He came twice more. The first time she remained as smoke and vapor, never letting him lay eyes upon her. He wandered the depths of her realm for days. She sent ghosts to torment him – his father, the unborn sister he never knew, his comrades at arms. He wept, but still he searched until at last, she took pity and let his mother guide him to the surface once more.

The third time he came, he wore a garland of flowers about his neck. Daisies, all whites and yellows. As he walked, he brushed his fingers through them, pressed the blossoms to his nose.

She had to know.

"Why would you bring flowers to the place where nothing grows?" she asked, perched on a stone outcropping far above him.

"For the journey, to remind me of who I am and from where I come," he said. Then he removed the chain from his neck and held it aloft. "And, I had thought that if you were kind enough to show your face, perhaps you would accept them as a token."

This was no funeral offering. This was something vitally alive.

And it was for her.

She drifted down from her perch. "You know what I am," she said.

"I've several guesses, yes, though I don't know by which name to call you."

She ignored the obvious question. "You know where this is."

"The three-headed dog was rather helpful in that regard."

"And you know what this would mean."

"Would it mean being by your side?" An emotion she hadn't a name for caught in her throat. She nodded. "Then yes."

She withdrew six seeds from her robe, shimmering like garnets in her outstretched palm. "I will not condemn you to this place before your time. If this is truly what your heart desires, take these, and for half of every year, you will rule by my side. The other half, you will stay in the world you deserve."

He watched her carefully. Then he extended his flowery necklace to her once more. "I will accept if you will give me the same. Half our lives in your world. Half our lives in mine. One whole life together."

Half her days in the light. Half her days pretending she was alive.

All her days with the one who brought curiosity and laughter to her after so, so long.

She bent her head and he crowned her with flowers. She placed the seeds into his hand. One by one, he ate.

When they kissed, she tasted pomegranates on his lips.

He tasted sunshine on hers.


	2. Rebirth

Abbie reappeared as the first bud of spring turned its tender, trembling face toward the sun. She was just there, sprinting barefoot down the hill beside Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and straight into his arms.

Stunned, he held her while her laughter turned to tears and back again.

When they stumbled home – her home, their home, the only home that ever mattered – he tried to cajole her into telling her story. But that day and for the days that followed, her answer was the same:

"I don't want to talk about it. Don't even want to _think_ about it."

So pleased was he to have her back, he let it lie there, unquestioned. All that mattered was where she was now, and where she would remain.

She was nearly frantic, all that dazzling spring and endless summer. She slept scarce three hours a night, her days filled with work and her nights filled with Miss Jenny, with Mr. Reynolds, with Ichabod, even with her father. She shopped for new clothes and abandoned dull browns and blacks in favor of saturated gold, vivid violet, grass green.

Every moment, she was a riot of color and life.

The Witnesses made love for the first time on a night when the air lay thick and humid upon them and the moon shone bright.

The lieutenant grew erratic as the weather turned chill. She kept him up until all hours talking of nothing, of everything. She fucked him until he begged for rest.

And through it all, she would not speak of what came before.

It was only when the first vein of scarlet struck the leaves that she came to him, dressed all in black.

"I have to go," she said.

"Where?"

"You know."

"I certainly do not, but I shall come with you. Let me only pack a bag—"

"I'll be back. I promise, Crane, no matter what happens, I'll be back come spring."

He did know, then. And his body turned to ice. "Whatever bargain you've made, it can be undone. Renegotiated."

"He doesn't renegotiate. And he doesn't renege." Her hands, one on either cheek, thawed his frozen flesh. "This was my choice. It was what I had to do."

He clutched her wrists desperately. "This is unacceptable. It's _unfair._ It's a grotesque half-life—"

"That I chose so I could have a whole life with you."

Ichabod wasn't sure if that sobbing sound came from him or her. Perhaps both.

"I don't want this for you."

"It's not so bad. It's not…it's not like you think. It just—" She straightened, jerking a glance over her shoulder. "I have to go. I should have told you sooner, but now I have to go."

There was everything to say and no time in which to say it. So he said the only thing that mattered. "I love you. Please, remember that. I love you."

Her kiss was soft as the spring breeze. And then she was gone.


	3. Fear Not

It had been three years and a fistful of days since she'd thrown herself into the abyss to save them all.

But the moment her eyes fell upon him, long before he spotted her beneath the tree, he knew it was her.

Her hair was longer now, and curled, dotted here and there with flashing opals of many colors. Despite the day's heat, she was clad in a thick leather jacket with a gorget protecting her throat and finely wrought calfskin gloves.

She hadn't aged a day. She was still beautiful and brave, with that defiant tilt to her chin, but now her lips were parted in alarm. She shook her head and backed away.

She hadn't meant to be seen.

He could not let her disappear.

"Abbie." He ran to her, flew to her side in a moment he had envisioned for so long, but she flung her gloved hands before her in a warding gesture.

"Don't be afraid," she said.

He stumbled to a stop. He had not feared until she spoke those words. "Why would I be afraid of you?"

She rubbed at her face; delicate rings adorned most of her fingers, each jewel flashing in the sunlight. "Shit. Force of habit."

"Who is afraid of you? Abbie?" He moved again to take her in his arms, to embrace her as he used to, but she skittered back, eyes wide with alarm.

"Crane, let's enjoy this for what it is. Don't make it what it can't be." Her arms wrapped tightly around her frame. "How've you been? You look good. Thin, but good. You need to remember to eat. Are you remembering to eat?"

Ichabod had dreamed of this moment for years. Genius moments where he found a way to make her sacrifice unnecessary; heroic moments where he scooped her up from the bowels of head; weeping moments like this where she just appeared and was his lieutenant once more.

In none of those scenarios had his diet come into play. And he was damned if he would let it now.

"Where have you been? What has become of you? Why have you come now?"

"Didn't mean for you to see me and you know it," she said softly. "A thousand times, every day, I stopped myself from peeping in on you. But I got weak today, and here I am. But I can't stay."

"You can't leave." Scalding panic dripped down his neck. "Not again. Not – certainly not without seeing Miss Jenny. Without—"

"The less people know about this, the better. I don't want her remember me like this." She swept a hand down her body, encompassing something Crane didn't understand.

"Why won't you let me hold you? A fist bump! At least grant me that," he pleaded.

Anger curdled in her eyes. "Can't you just trust me? The way I always trusted you?"

"It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of—"

She stormed back a step and tore one of the gloves away. She pounded her open palm against the trunk of the oak sapling that shaded them.

Its leaves burst into autumnal colors, then shriveled, died, fell. The bark sloughed away like dead skin. Its very trunk seemed to slump.

She kicked a curtain of rustling leaves at him. "What'd'you think that's gonna do to you? Huh? Guesses?"

"A curse. We can break a curse, Abbie—"

"Not a curse. Goes deeper than that. Way deeper. And people don't call me by that name. Not anymore." With hard-won calm, she worked her fingers back into the glove. "This was a mistake."

"We can fight this. You know we can fight anything if we are united. Let us at least try."

That was when the tears appeared in her eyes. Tears he could never wipe away. "That's what I always loved most about you, Crane." The past-tense cut. "You always really believed that. You were the idealist; I was the survivor. I did what I had to do down there. But there were consequences."

"You are Death," he breathed.

"Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," she said with a wave-tossed smile. "And I should get back to it."

"Take me with you." The words were gone before he could consider their meaning. But even when his mind caught up to his tongue, he found he had no wish to recant them.

She snorted.

"Life without you is life without salt, without wine, without music. It is a daily shuffle from bed to bed, trying to fill the hours in between with aught that might have a scrap of meaning." The words, more words than he thought he'd spoken in weeks, tumbled out. "Losing you brought everything into sharpest clarity. I was a fool. And you would be the greater fool to run now."

"Do I need to repeat the tree trick? Do I need to spell it out for you, what would need to happen for you to come with me? It might be life without some fucking seasoning, but at least it's still _life._ "

Color flashed from the corner of his eye. There, at the trunk of the now-dead tree, was a cluster of violets, small and tender, sprouting up from the sudden decay. He plucked them from the damp earth. "It's not enough." He held out the tiny bouquet with trembling hands. "I miss you, Abbie. I miss who I am with you. I miss how _we_ are."

She was still. Ichabod could not even ascertain if she breathed. Her eyes were locked upon the violets, all white and purple. Her hand quivered over the blossoms. Then it clenched into a fist.

"I can't. Not even for what we could have been. It's not worth it."

"But I won't be dead. Not in truth."

"No pulse, no body, no life. _Dead_ dead."

"But the soul lives on, does it not?"

She shook her head. "I can't. I can't do that to you. Can't see you like that."

"Then don't see. Close your eyes, Lieutenant."

There were tears on her cheeks and tears in his eyes. But, nodding, she did as he bade.

Crane filled his lungs. Felt the hammer of his heart. Savored the wind on his cheek.

Then he leaned forward and kissed her lips.

The violets fell to the ground.

And they were together once more.


	4. Humanity

The dead kept coming to him with the woman's mark.

Not humans, usually. Not things with full souls. Quasi-creatures who lived half-lives and found themselves bewildered in the land of the dead. And her hand was upon each.

He had to see the warrior who could cause such carnage.

She was small, this Grace Abigail. Shockingly so. Beautiful and delicate and utterly lethal. She killed with cunning and blades and so many, many bullets. She protected by day and hunted by night.

He supposed that, too, was a kind of protection.

But the most remarkable thing about her was not her size or her skill or her efficiency.

She was alone. One woman standing in the face of a howling hurricane of evil.

And somehow, little by little, fighting it back.

It had been more than two and a half centuries since Hades had clad himself in mortal form. Then, he had not been able to resist the magnetic pull of a brilliant, wonderful, terrible band of men who all chanced to live and fight and think and die together. But just as quickly, he saw their hypocritical dream begin to crumble, and he turned his face from humans again.

His people skills were a bit rusty, you might say.

So he donned the same form again, gangly and long-nosed, and concocted a mad story that only a woman who lived in a mad world would believe. That he had slept the centuries away, just so he could fight at her side.

In its way, it was true.

He left hell to govern itself and devoted himself to life. They battled monsters great and small. She taught him the ways of her world and the ways of goodness. She was still the woman in the eye of the hurricane, still pushing forward in a war she could never fully win. But with two of them, the storm retreated just a bit more. A bit more.

And the god made flesh grew to love her. Not for her ferocity, though that was true enough and that was beautiful. But he loved her for her kindness. Her fear. Her humanity.

Every day he knew he should tell her who and what he was. That she would not appreciate his subterfuge, now years in the making. But then she wrapped her hand around his and all his resolve fled.

In the end, he stayed by her side through fifty-three human years. It was nowhere near enough.

They never sired children – life cannot come of death – but oh, they enjoyed the attempt. They grew old together, his hands like paper, her hair like snow.

He held her in his arms as the fluid filled her lungs and she began to drown in her own skin. He kissed her lips and granted her a drifting, peaceful death filled with dreams of a life well-lived.

The doctors would find two bodies entwined in a final embrace. He must've died of a broken heart, they clucked. It happens, when folk were in love such as these were. Likely for the best one never had to live without the other.

None of them saw the king, hale and young once more, guiding his queen to her rightful throne.


End file.
